Tableau Server Now Available on AWS Marketplace

We’re excited to announce that Tableau has joined the Amazon Web Services Marketplace with an option to quickly deploy Tableau Server in the cloud. The AWS Marketplace is an online store that helps customers find, buy, and immediately use products that run in the AWS cloud. Our offering on Marketplace provides yet another way to deploy a collaborative Tableau environment in addition to the options of installing Tableau Server on your own on premises hardware or using our hosted service, Tableau Online.

How it Works

A Tableau Server Amazon Machine image (AMI) now launches from the AWS Marketplace via a seamless one-click experience. When you go to the Tableau page within the AWS Marketplace, select the size of virtual machine you want, then click to launch, a virtual machine spins up with a pre-installed Tableau Server instance. The only setup required involves registering and creating the Tableau Server admin account. This is a "bring-your-own-license" offering, which means if you already have a license for Tableau Server you simply insert it at the registration step. If you don't have a Tableau Server license, but still want to test things out, there is the 14-day free trial option (Note: If you choose the free trial option, you are still charged the hourly rate for the virtual server by Amazon). After your trial experience, you can simply obtain a Tableau Server license from our sales team and continue in the cloud environment you've already set up.

If you have SSAS installed on another instance and Tableau can see/connect to it, sure - All you're pretty much doing here is running Tableau Server on a VM, after all. Just install the SSAS drivers on the OS, and you're good. Same answer for Windows Auth. If you have AD installed / configured via a DC and/or AWS Directory Services, should work.

You'd setup multiple machines on EC2 just like you do on "physical" boxes and then then configure them the exact same way in either case - the high availability story remains the same regardless of whether you are virtual or physical. At the end of this blog (unrelated to running Tableau Server from an AMI), you can see me running up to 4 nodes of Tableau together in what could be an HA configuration: http://tableaulove.tumblr.com/post/117121569355/load-testing-tableau-ser...

I've done some single-machine work on Azure, and it's about the same. I've found it's more difficult to get the the IOPS I need on Azure, unfortunately. With EC2 I can just dial in the IOPS I want and go...on Azure I have to strip multiple disks at the OS level into a single volume to get enough throughput.

Thanks Russel. We are running Tableau Server on Azure today. I can't comment on the IOPS flexibility between Azure and AWS as I have limited experience with the AWS platform but that's interesting to hear. Should get a second look at the AWS offering.

This is great news for faster deployment. At Optoro we're already using Tableau in AWS (manually installed); other than a quick deployment, what are the advantages of using this option vs. manual installation?

For an organization that has already deployed Tableau Server on EC2 manually and is comfortable with that set-up, this announcement probably doesn't signal any need to change. The rapid deployment via Marketplace is the biggest advantage vs. manual EC2 configuration. For people and companies looking to be up and running with Tableau Server in less than 5 min. and who may be new to AWS in general, this is a huge time saver.

1) Is there an option to deploy Tableau in multi AZ set up in HA (Highly Available) mode?
2) I saw two options in the video - bring your own license and 14 days trial. Is there an option to buy 'Pay as you go' Tableau license as part of this offering?!

1. Currently there isn't an option to deploy Tableau Server from the AWS Marketplace in an HA configuration. You can do this by manually spinning up multiple instances and then installing Tableau Server.
2. This is only a Bring-Your-Own-License or 14 Day trial option for Tableau Server on the AWS Marketplace. A Pay-as-you-go model isn't offered.

Thanks Dustin. While Tableau in Marketplace is a great news, the install itself on an AWS EC2 instance is simple. The above two offerings will be extremely valuable. I hope they are there in your roadmap!